Masterpiece is divided into three parts; the first is common to the two following, and they share a tipping point that leads the story of each in very different directions. The protagonist is an aspiring artist who succeeds in creating a masterpiece of sculpture in the first uncertainty, and of literature in the second. The sculptor's life ends at its peak moment in a freakish accident while the writer lives to a very old age and witnesses the collapse of modern civilization from overpopulation and environmental degradation.